LSU holds on to beat Jackson State and advance

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) -

The LSU Tigers claw past Jackson St. 11-7 in a very disjointed game.

Ryan Eades got off to a shaky start against Jackson St. after a 24 minute rain delay. Charles Tillery smashed a 2 RBI double down the right field line off Eades to give the JSU Tigers the 2-0 lead in the first inning.

LSU came back to tie the game in the bottom of the frame. Mason Katz drove in Sean McMullen on a sac fly to right cutting the lead to 2-1. Alex Bregman scored on a throwing error by Nick Marigny to tie it up at 2-2.

Eades struggled in the second, loading the bases on two base hits and a hit batter, but got out if the inning by striking out Bryce Taylor.

Eades did not make it out of the third inning and was replaced by Kurt McCune after walking two batters. Eades lasted 2 1/3 innings allowing nine base runners. Not the outing Paul Mainieri envisioned from Eades, after saying he wanted his junior right hander to go at least seven innings.

The Tigers gave McCune some run support in the third. Katz delivering his second sac fly of the game scoring McMullen to make it 3-2 LSU. They extend the lead to 4-2 on a Christian Ibarra RBI double.

It was a scary end to the top of the fourth when Raph Rhymes and Bregman collided on a ball in left field. Both walked off the field under their own power but appeared to have blood coming from their noses. Both guys were replaced in the lineup as Rhymes received stitches and Bregman went to a hospital to be evaluated.

The Tigers bats came alive in the 4th for four runs including a two-run blast off Katz's bat that hit the batter's eye screen in center field that gave the Tigers a 8-2 lead. It was Katz's 15th home run of the year. Chris Sciambra and McMullen drove in the fifth and sixth runs of the game before Katz's homer.

Jared Foster's first at bat was a memorable one, jacking a two-run homer to left to extend LSU's lead to 10-2. It was Foster's second bomb of the year. His other one came against Mississippi St.

Jackson St. scratched across five runs in the final two innings to make it an interesting game before falling to LSU.